House prices

[slimfandango]

Is that a big fall around the corner?

[Oneeyedvic]

Definitiely - just depends on how far we are away from the corner......

[Hgrove]

I think so too, the problem of course is defining the exact moment!

[jno]

'Before the council tax revaluation' would be a good time

[5029]

I doubt it, with the stamp duty being raised to �120K,  people who were keeping their house prices below �60K to make them more attractive to buyers, will now raise them, which will in turn raise the rest of prices

[jake-the-peg]

I would think this unlikely.

Intrest rates are currently reasonably high and the pressures (other than house prices) are more likely to see a drop. As people are generally willing to spend a certain proportion of their money on mortgages any decrease in interest rates is likely to prop up house prices generally.

There has been a lot of speculation in house prices falling -the Daily Mail seems to have run stories predicting the collapse of house prices on an almost weekly basis for years and there's definately what you might call a softening going on where people have stopped snapping up anything the moment it comes on the market, outbidding each other and generally acting daft.

You might see a gradual reduction in house prices in certain sections especially cheaper properties if the government's building program really starts to bite but I can't see why you'd get a sudden big fall - there are still an awful lot of people who want to buy houses and can't afford to so slight drops will bring them into the market and prop it up. I'd sugest that you'd need a sudden catestrophic economic event to trigger another mid eighties style collapse 

[Oneeyedvic]

On a talk that I went on around a year ago, there was a speaker from one of the major institutions. In his words....

"there will always be a housing boom, and in that boom they will always say there won't be a bust"